The Tipping Point
by NoCleverSig
Summary: Of all the ways Helen Magnus imagined she might die, slitting her wrists in a tub full of warm water was among the most cliché.  Helen Magnus but also Tesla, Druitt, Watson, etc.


**Author's Note: **I don't know if Helen would every consider doing this, but if she did, this is how I would imagine it going down. Warning: Suicide and character death (multiple) follow. Thanks, as always, to the best beta in the world, MajorSam, and also to LadyD for doing a read through for me. Kleenex anyone? PS: I don't own Sanctuary or any of its characters. My words, however, are my own.

**The Tipping Point  
**by NoCleverSig, Copyright 2011

Of all the ways Helen Magnus imagined she might die, slitting her wrists in a tub full of warm water was among the most cliché. Yet here she was lying naked in the marble bath in her Italian villa while blood poured forth from her veins like an inky, red cloud.

It was stereotypical, she knew, and garishly romantic, her choice of her demise. The bathtub certainly wasn't necessary to the act of blood-letting, but it would make it so much simpler for her staff to clean up. She was sure, in the end, they would appreciate her thoughtfulness.

It was interesting, Helen mused as she felt the life leaking out of her, her blood pressure dropping, her heart racing, her thoughts becoming…hazy. She had always believed suicide to be triggered by some final, cataclysmic event in one's life. But if that had been the case, surely she would have committed the act ages ago. God knows she had reason enough: the lack of a mother, the humiliation of her father, the loss of her love, and the death of her daughter.

Ashley. She smiled at the thought of her, the face of her beautiful, blonde girl crystal clear in her mind. Helen was not a great believer in the afterlife, but given what she'd seen in her time, she didn't disbelieve either. Death, like life, was just another grand adventure, and she was eager to see what might greet her when she emerged on the other side.

* * *

The Faraglioni Rocks jutted out of the sparkling azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea like Roman gods, staking their claim to this world and challenging both heaven and earth to defy them.

Helen Magnus stopped along the white columned terrace of her villa as she did every time she came to Capri and admired them. They were kindred spirits, the rocks and she, both survivors and protectors. The rocks, battered for centuries by the ocean, the rain, and the erosion of time, stood strong, offering refuge to rare and wonderful creatures. Helen had done the same in her day and, in the doing, had survived epic battles of her own.

But like the three, massive stones, the skirmishes had taken their toll, cutting and molding her. The scars she bore ran deep. Some so deep, she feared they might never heal.

It had been only a year since she'd last visited her villa on the Amalfi coast and the beach of Marina Piccola. As always, the scent of pinkish-red bougainvilleas, which draped the vine covered arbors above her and the hillside below, hung heavy in the air. If her staff thought it strange that she had returned so quickly when every seven years had usually sufficed, they didn't say so.

It had been one of the most difficult years of her life. Given how much she had experienced in her time, famine, disease, and war, that was saying a lot. Sadly, she was used to losing friends, associates, and lovers to the ravages of sickness and time. As used to it as one ever became. But in the last few months she'd lost more than that... she'd lost the two remaining people that had tethered her to this world.

The shock of it cut deeper than she could have ever imagined.

Nikola Tesla was dead, buried in a landslide in Nepal while chasing his elusive dream of restoring his vampire nature. Helen shivered at the memory, rubbing her bare shoulders despite the blazing Italian sun. The ocean breeze molded her white cotton dress to her body, exposing her rich curves with its intensity and tangling her long, dark hair with its rough gusts.

But it was John's death that had finally undone her.

Tesla had been there with her when they'd found him, two months before Nikola's own demise. He'd been working with Helen on a theory, a way to separate the energy creature once and for all from Druitt. They believed they were close. All they needed now was to find John and persuade him to return with them to the Sanctuary. Nikola had tracked him to Afghanistan, but when they finally arrived in the small, wooden hut in Kabul, Druitt was dead. The image still burned fresh in Helen's mind. John, lying naked and still on the hard, dirt floor, his eyes and lips open, the flies gathering on his ears, nostrils, and mouth. The stench of death hanging heavy in the air.

Nikola had rushed to her side trying to keep her out of the room, to block her view, but his efforts were pointless. She had come this far, two, maybe three lifetimes with this man. She would certainly see him to his death.

She stayed in there with him for hours, despite the smell, the heat, and the insects. The track marks on his arms, his legs, his eyelids from the heroin he'd injected so clear she had no illusions of how he had died. She wondered if it had been a mistake or an intentional decision to end his life. Perhaps someday, if certain faiths were to be believed, she would have the opportunity to ask him. But for now, she simply remained beside him, stroking his cold, rigid skin, tears rolling down her cheeks, sharing with him a symphony of feelings she had guarded closely for so long in her heart. Finally, she finished her confession and closed his eyelids, the last act, the final touch of a love so tragic Shakespeare himself might have wept at the tale.

In the months that followed their deaths, Helen changed. Distanced herself from her work. She turned the day-to-day operations of the Sanctuary and the Sanctuary Network over to Will and positioned herself more as a figurehead and advisor. Will was sure it was just a phase, a part of the process of grieving, and like every other death or dead end they had encountered in their work together, Magnus would pull herself up, bounce back, and be ready to fight another day. She only needed time. So when she said she was going to her villa in Italy to rest, Will and Henry had encouraged it. Only the Big Guy had looked at her askance, and she had returned his gaze with a knowing smile and a hug so tight it had made him sob with grief. Yet he hadn't said a word to the others. And for that, she would be eternally grateful.

It had been more than a month since her arrival. In that time she'd descended the steep steps to the beach below and laid in the warm, white sand, soaking in the rays of the Italian sun, her skin becoming a golden tan. She cooked, something she hadn't done in earnest in ages, scouring through favorite recipes and confounding her staff who wanted very much to prepare her meals for her. She shooed them away as she experimented gleefully with herbs and spices and rich, fresh food from the market in town. She read, not scientific journals and papers, but books from her youth. Authors she treasured: Austen, Wilde, Bronte, Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Stevenson, and Kipling. She sat on her terrace each morning with her bread and fruit gazing at the majesty of the sunrise over the Bay of Naples. Finally, at night, when her staff had been dismissed and gone home, she lay naked in her pool overlooking the black Tyrrhenian Sea, the moonlight casting its ivory glow over the water, a glass of merlot in hand, thinking back on a life that should never have been.

Tonight, as she relaxed in the water, the 40th night of her stay, the last remaining member of The Five, Helen felt her period of testing and judgment drawing to a close. She had purified herself these past few weeks, taken stock of her life, and found her mission complete. Her work had made a difference, and it would continue with ease. The thought that she had completed her cycle left her giddy with peace. She reached for the bottle of wine the staff had left her, ready to pour herself a glass, when she noticed the label and smiled.

* * *

It was 1921. James Watson and several friends had accompanied Helen on her trip to the villa. James had brought a gift as thanks, two bottles of his finest merlot. As the party raged inside, he and Helen drank the first bottle as they relaxed alone in the terrace pool, the Faraglioni Rocks glistening in the waning moon. The sound of Irving Berlin's, "All By Myself" seeped out onto the veranda, the tune strangely bright given its melancholy lyrics, the composer's meditation on solitude and the misery of growing old alone.

_All by myself in the morning  
All by myself in the night;  
I sit alone with a table and a chair,  
So unhappy there  
Playing solitaire  
All by myself I get lonely  
Watching the clock on the shelf  
I'd love to rest my weary head on __somebody's__ shoulder  
I hate to grow older  
All by myself._

Watson set his glass on the tile above the pool and touched his index finger to the tip of Helen's nose, trying to get her attention.

"A pound for your thoughts, my dear," he smiled, his dark hair wet and slicked back from the laps he'd swam earlier.

She grinned at him, cockeyed and slightly tipsy. "I thought it was a penny, James?"

Watson laughed, stroking the water around him as he floated in front of Helen while she rested her body against the pool's edge, arms outstretched, wine glass in hand.

"I'm many things, my dear, but cheap is not one of them."

"An admirable quality, doctor," she said, raising her glass in toast.

He tilted his head and looked at her. "Honestly, Helen. What are you thinking?" he asked, approaching her, his knees knocking against her legs under the bluish water.

She looked at him, considering. "I just wonder if that's how it will be, James. All by myself in the morning, all by myself at night, growing older…all by myself."

James paused, taken aback by her sudden sadness, then looked into her eyes, his face bobbing above the water, inches from her lips.

"You'll always have me, my dear. You know that. Keeping you company is my life's greatest pleasure," he smiled.

He meant it to be comforting and mildly humorous, but Helen knew the true sentiment behind it, and it made her regret once more the fickle nature of the heart. That she would still love a man who could take a human life without a second thought and make light of her feelings for him, when she could have had this man who cherished her, worshiped the ground she walked on, but wouldn't say a word of it lest it ruin their friendship and respect.

Love was a fickle and foolish temptress.

She set her glass down on the tile above her, reached for James' hand, and pulled him toward the steps.

"Let's go inside, James. I'm cold. And I'd like to dance. Will you join me?"

Watson looked up at her, his face beaming. "Always, my dear."

* * *

She sipped her final glass, remembering. The wine was as smooth and supple as the night she and James had drank that first bottle 95 years ago. But she felt no melancholy tonight, only happiness at the memory of him and another glimmer of hope that he too might be waiting with a witty remark and a pound for her thoughts.

She pulled herself out of the pool, her skin rippling with goose bumps at the sudden cold, and wrapped her robe around her. She moved once more to the edge of the terrace and gazed at the towering rocks beyond making her final confession. Then she turned and walked inside, the merlot still in hand.

She'd already prepared the room. Candles were a glow casting undulating shadows against the wall. She turned on the water until it was a pleasant warmth, fastened the plug, undid her belt, and let her robe drop soundlessly to the floor.

* * *

As the bleeding continued, Helen clinically cataloged her condition. She could feel cardiac arrhythmia beginning. This would be followed soon, she reflected distantly, by cardiovascular collapse, cardiac arrest, and finally death.

It would be good to see Ashley again, she thought vaguely, the candlelight flickering and growing dim. She had missed her so.

Truth be told, she missed them all.

END


End file.
